


And So the Harvest Can Wait

by Chromat1cs



Series: Basingstoke Diaries [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Editor!Remus, M/M, MWPP, Marauders' Era, Mechanic!Sirius, Post Hogwarts AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 07:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9537944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromat1cs/pseuds/Chromat1cs
Summary: Summertime swelters like it used to in boyhood, a motorbike decides to break down, and everything changes just a little bit too quickly to keep the dizziness at bay.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Yaaaay hello! I'm all moved in to my new building! Just finished putting together the last piece of furniture tonight and really wanted to get this new fic finished and posted :)
> 
> I hope you enjoy this one as much as the last few, I've loved hearing all your feedback and reactions to this AU. I have at least several more parts for this series, some in chronological order and some as flashbacks, so stay posted! Thank you again for reading, you're all gorgeous <3
> 
> P.S. half-Indian James gives me life, high five if you agree

If he’s being thoroughly honest, Sirius is angry. He had left the garage in a strange mood twenty minutes earlier, frustrated at himself for not be able to fix the carburetor mechanism in an old Vauxhall that had been sitting on his side of the shop for three days, and his attitude had only soured further as the traffic of the roads proved to be disgustingly impassable with the advent of summer tourists from the rest of the UK. As a bead of sweat creeps down between his shoulder blades beneath a black t-shirt that seems to be serving him more ill than not at the moment, Sirius curses lightly into the muted capsule of his helmet and revs his engine to encourage the wood-paneled elephant of a Ford in front of him to bloody fucking _move._

Sirius has always preferred winter to summer by a wide margin. It’s obvious to him it has everything to do with school terms, dreading the return each summer to the web of familial ire in the summertime, dress robes stuffy and hammering six different types of fluent discomfort into his skin as a boy while the inside of Grimmauld Place remained dark and dour even in the dead of July. It is nearly August now, and Sirius feels the instinct of instant distaste welling up from the growl of his bike’s idle at his shins and up, up, up until he can feel it in his molars. Summer is, in fact, the worst. He makes to gun forward as the light changes ahead of him, but Mother Nature has apparently overhead his stewing on her seasons and seems to have other plans.

It happens all at once, which is to say Sirius feels the lurch of his beloved machine in the pit of his stomach like an extension of his legs. The engine belches, stuttering and shooting him forward several inches before he can haphazardly brake in a stunted little squeal of tires. The Ford moves through the intersection with the slow obliviousness of touristic impermanence, and as Sirius tries to gun his ignition and skirt around the turn, the last damned turn before the side street that will take him right up to the flat, the bike stutters and coughs pathetically. It stops. Sirius is stuck. He slings an obscene string of artistic profanity into his helmet again before tearing it off and shaking his hair out unceremoniously. The bike is fucked.

The Mercedes behind him decides to honk, blaring in a rude skirt of noise as it pulls around the failed motorcycle and speeds through the rest of the street, and Sirius responds after it with a forceful fist across his chest into the crook of his other arm—an elderly woman mutters disappointment to his left on her way through the crosswalk and he immediately puts his arms down, a heady stew of general heat and ire and frustration mixing now with embarrassment as he hefts his arms under the handlebars and hoists the bike to the curb so traffic can continue passing.

He had known it was getting rickety, even _Remus_ , with his nearly nonexistent expertise in mechanics, had warned him about it the last time he heard it trundling into the alleyway for the night from their open window last week. _It’s going to shit itself on you, and then what do you do? Can’t charm it back together in public,_ he had said, and Sirius had brushed it off as a nag. Remus had a knack for nagging, Sirius had a knack for ignoring it. He always managed to forget, however, that nearly 80 percent of the time Remus was absolutely correct.

Sirius lets fly a litany of choice words and phrases as he clips his helmet to one of the handlebars and throws the gear shift into neutral. He begins pushing the bike across the traffic circle, ignoring the ugly indents he creates on the well-manicured grass with his tires, and continues to curse the oppressive heat around him like a valve stuck past Hot and soldered permanently onto Fuck You. Once he manages to trudge into the alleyway beside his building, even the cat that Sirius spooks with a playful growl more often than not only looks sideways at him through a long stretch on top of one of the dumpsters pushed against the dead end. Sirius feels the dog in him twinge at the affront, and he settles for showing the tabby two middle fingers before glaring shortly at his bike one last time. _Fuck_. He can already tell it’s going to take more than an hour or two on a Sunday to fix.

Sirius tramps up the main stairwell with his helmet under his elbow and his riding jacket already halfway off. He shoulders open the door to the flat and moves to toss his keys onto the table, but he’s stopped by the flutter of layers of parchment strewn across every surface of the kitchen. He looks up into the living room and sees Remus seated on the floor, a quill behind his ear and a cigarette in his hand, red editing quill enchanted with his unique web of markup charms to correct and rewrite with efficient little flicks of his wand. He barely looks up above the frame of his reading glasses but waves a greeting to Sirius with the hand busied with his cigarette—Sirius sees that he’s very shirtless and slightly sweaty, wearing nothing but blue cotton pants amid the forest of parchment held down at their corners by books acting as makeshift paperweights. Every window is open. Sirius groans with the weight of a small universe.

“I take it you’ve deduced the cooling unit is broken,” Remus says after a piston-like exhale of smoke out the window to his left, not looking up from his page. Sirius puts his keys in the dish by the door, one of the only surfaces not carpeted with the latest textbook pieces, and toes off his boots petulantly.

“Well the powers that be have a sick sense of humor,” he grumbles, “because my bike broke down four blocks away and I had to lug it over without charming anything.”

“You poor creature,” Remus hums noncommittally, making the quill on the page do an intricate little dance of red slashes and shuffling in apparent consultation through a pile of parchment at his feet held down by a copy of _Nine Tomorrows_. “Haven’t I been warning you about that for weeks now? Not going to say I told you so.”

“You might just as well,” Sirius growls, really feeling the heat of the flat now and pulling off his socks and shirt in a quick sweeping motion. He makes straight for the bathroom, craving to sink up to his forehead in ice cold water. “Going to draw a bath, will you be in?”

“I have to get all this finished up in the next two hours and send it off, I’m there in spirit.” Sirius hears the small smile in his voice, appreciates the lightness he can still harbor under a deadline, and shuts the bathroom door. He hefts open the little window on the far side of the tub and twists open the cold water valve, letting it run freely as he plugs the drain and splashes a measure of it onto his face to cool his flushed skin. He hates sweating without exerting himself, always has, hates the way it makes his hair cling to the back of his neck and stick his shirt to his shoulder blades. Summer is cruel for the way it makes him sweat just to _exist_. He peels out of his trousers and pants when the water his the halfway mark on the tub and steps in—the icy shock of coldness rushes across his skin and feels like blessed deliverance from the stifling sauna their home has become.

_Winter, blessed bloody winter—_ the only thought that keeps Sirius from clawing his skin right off of his bones as he lets the icy water slowly cool his veins. Winter always afforded the privilege and ease of bundling for warmth instead of shedding for heat, it was always easier to add cloth than it was to try and be strategic about what to take off and how in the sweltering heat. His complexion predisposed him to the cold anyways, pale and dark-haired, with a knack for burning red unless he had the forethought to rope himself with layers of sticky-feeling sunblock charms. Sirius loves the warmth of sun, just only in the spring outdoors or through a window in the safety of a controlled room. He lets out a pathetic whimper to himself when he remembers the reality of their unit being dead now.

After letting the water go lukewarm after several minutes—a blatant crime against nature, for it usually could keep its temperature for at least twenty minutes and Sirius is too far past stubbornly peeved now to keep charming it colder—Sirius steps out of the tub and snatches up a towel to throw offhandedly around his waist. He shakes his hair out, not bothering to comb it through because what’s the bloody point, he’ll sweat it into its annoyingly natural curly waves no matter what he does at this point. _Fuck it all._

Remus is tidying the heaps of parchment by the time Sirius opens up the bathroom again, paperweight books stacked back in place on the shelf and stacking the manuscript into order in a tall pile held down by a large empty mug. His back is to Sirius and so Sirius stills his seething and lets himself indulge for an indolent moment by watching Remus’ leanness move beneath his skin. He really is gorgeous—scarred, imperfect, raw edges and inner fierceness like an uncut gemstone as opposed to Sirius’ own carefully-wrought and meticulously polished surface of hundreds of facets. He is an anomaly that Sirius wants to decipher over and over again.

One of Remus’ lighter and older scars traces his torso, from his left shoulder down to the curve of his lower back, a trio of claw marks that have faded into nearly-benign white threads that look almost artistic in the lowering afternoon light with their thin sheen of sweat overtop. Ever since he started emerging from boyhood, Remus has carried his power in his shoulders. The slopes running smoothly down from his neck, nested like oak roots into the complex network of musculature and bone that make up the topography of his upper back, move like water into the triangular dip of his waist down to the two small dimples in his back just visible now above his pants. Sirius knows Remus’ strength can be fearsome, has seen Remus lift himself over fences and onto high walls with just a short hop and a pull of those secretly-sinewed arms, has felt the reigned flex of those fingers on his own skin and sometimes around his neck when he asks for it in the heat of his passions. Sirius feels that his own power sits best in his abdominals and his thighs—he had always been the fastest among the four of them at school when they would tear across the commons or when he wanted to be by himself—and he loves that they offset one another like this. Arms and legs, russet gold and polished black, moon and stars, solstice and equinox. Yes, Sirius sees it in the twist of his eyes and the easy smoothness of his smile, Remus _is_ summer, the swirling complement of heat and stubborn vigor to Sirius’ autumnal depth.

Sirius steps over to him, all frustration at the cloying heat forgotten now for the reality of Remus, and kisses his shoulder with ardor, tastes the salt of his sweat atop his smell tinged with tobacco spice. Remus shivers lightly out of surprise before laughing, free and airily.

“Careful there, you’re just going to make yourself sweaty again,” he warns.

“I can’t just ignore the nicety of you clearing your papers off of every shaggable surface, now can I?” He kisses a bit higher on the cords of his upper back, flicking his tongue against the freckled surface and feeling its heat match that of his mouth. “That would just be poor flatmate decorum.”

Remus turns to face him, steps an inch closer with an eyebrow raised but a light smile on his lips. “Where did this come from? Half an hour ago you looked like the world had ended and you’d never get it up again.”

“Your shoulders did some convincing,” Sirius says gently, resting his hand just inside the waistband of Remus’ pants and stroking his thumb there over one of the alluring little dimples. Remus respondsby perching his own hands on Sirius’ hips just above his towel.

“My shoulders?”

“They’re very eloquent.”

“Apparently my body knows some sign language I’m not aware of.”

“Oh, definitely. It knows a lot of filthy words, you should give it a stern talking-to.”

“Really now? What a crafty little slag. What has it been saying about me?”

“Mostly things like ‘I’m positively lovely and look like a dream in this living room right now.’”

“Ahh, it’s very full of itself. I wonder who taught it that.”

Sirius smiles easily through a kiss to a fragrant tumble of Remus’ curls at his temple. “I’ll take the blame for that, I tell it too often.”

“Oh now I never asked you to _stop_ , did I?” Remus’ eyes are alight with impishness as he catches Sirius in a clamant kiss. He starts laughing to himself halfway through the motion of moving a hand up Sirius’ back. “We’re going to shag in the middle of a cooling unit outage, aren’t we.”

“Yes indeed,” Sirius hums, pulling Remus closer by the waist and biting his lip to stifle a sound when Remus unceremoniously takes one of his fingers in his mouth and swirls his tongue around it with lazy satisfaction.

“Right here on the floor, I surmise.”

“I’ve got a towel here ripe for removing if the hardwood is too rough for His Ladyship’s knees.”

“So you do,” Remus says with long and purposeful vowels. He slides off Sirius’ towel with one hand, taking the exposed and quickly-hardening length of him in the other. Sirius closes his eyes and leans into the grip like a prayer.

“All the windows are open,” Remus murmurs with a light teasing tone, “you’ll have to find some way to keep me quiet.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Sirius breathes, pulling him close into another hazy kiss that electrifies the heat around them like a match. They sink to the wood of the floor, pliant, and take the afternoon in blooms of heat beneath their skin where hands and lips forge trails. Sirius swallows Remus’ voice like nectar, and in the attic of his mind, from on his back underneath all of Remus’ tensed strength and eagerness, Sirius finds he hates the throes of July a little bit less.

—

They sleep with the windows open as well, a night as calm as it is balmy, and Sirius dreams of distant tropics. He’s adrift in the Pacific, where he’s never actually been before, but in his dream it feels like a full-bodied kiss from Mother Nature. Suddenly, from the deep departure of staring up at endless and impossible constellations, a trumpeting toucan invades his view and flaps at his face. He swats at it, the mirage of dreams shivers and breaks around him, and suddenly he’s awake at home to the early light of a Sunday and a frantic little burrowing owl scrabbling at the foot of the bed.

“Oh, bugger off, what are you doing here!” He moves to shoo it away before he notices the parchment tied to its leg through the molasses of sleep. Little things start clicking into place; it’s too early for a normal call, this owl is James’ nervous wreck of an animal, and Lily is already a week beyond her due date. Sirius’ heart leaps.

“Moony!” He shakes violently at Remus’ shoulder, _too hard, whoops_ when Remus wakes with a sharp gasp and reaches immediately for his wand. “Easy! It’s a message from James, I think Lily’s having the baby!” Sirius blurts, and Remus stills himself with a half-woken blink and a collecting breath. The owl screeches in a wheeze as it fluffs itself irritably, and Remus notices it for the first time. He heaves a sigh and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Christ, Sirius, you can’t _do_ that these days, it’s like crying wolf—”

“This is the most important thing that will happen all year, you can afford one rude wakeup call,” Sirius says emphatically, removing the slip of parchment from the owls’ foot and feeling like Christmas morning in the dewy heat of July.

_MEET US AT MUNGO’S, WE’RE LEAVING NOW_  
_BRING A BOOK OR SOMETHING THIS MIGHT TAKE A WHILE_  
_WHAT THE FUCK ARE CONTRACTIONS_  
_SEE YOU SOON  
_ _— PRONGS_

Sirius can’t stop a broad smile from invading his features as he sits up on his heels, reading the message through five times in several seconds. He feels like flying.

“They’re at Mungo’s, come on, let’s meet them there with flowers or food or something—” Sirius has leapt from the bed and stumbled into the nearest pair of jeans before his brain catches up with his mouth and he realizes the reality of the situation. He stops cold for a moment and turns back to see Remus sitting quietly, reading the message with wry acceptance sketched all over his face.

“I’ll just wait until they’re discharged then, it’s fine,” he says gently. He sighs, a light little sniff of resignation, and absently scratches the owl on top of its head before lifting it back onto the window sill to let it fly off. Sirius’ chest tightens.

“Bullshit, you could come anyways—”

“Sirius, they’ve got warding runes sewn thicker than anything against Dark Creatures there. You know that.”

“But—I can’t just _leave_ you here—”

“I’m sure find a way to survive, love. This baby is essentially your nephew, you are _not_ missing this.” Remus’ eyes are hard alongside his initial dry sarcasm, convincing in their surety. There’s a silvery flash of something that Sirius might have called Sadness beneath his gaze, but it disappears too quickly to be positive; Remus always covers his frustration as smooth as glass.

“I’ll be back before dinner,” Sirius says quickly, pulling on a shirt and finding a pair of shoes in their closet. He clenches his jaw as he pulls his hair up into a loose knot, swallowing the vague and aimless anger brewing in him for the collective of St. Mungo’s and all their fucking sanctions. He laces up his shoes and turns back to Remus to kiss him, fierce and deep and thick with an apology he knows isn’t his fault but feels like it anyways. When they separate, Remus smiles with the despondency he had masked so well earlier. Sirius itches to punch a Healer.

“Tell them both congratulations, I’m equal parts proud and terrified they’ve managed to combine their genetics, and I’ll be by first thing once they’re back to the Hollow,” Remus says with his hands on either side of Sirius’ face. Sirius nods and kisses him again in a brief embrace that lifts him slightly off the mattress, wordlessly commending him for his indomitable patience and humility.

“I love you,” he says plainly when he pulls back, eyes bright and quick with apprehension.

“Love you more, Pads; go meet your godson.”

Sirius can’t help but steal another quick kiss before striding out of the bedroom, always drawn to the gravity of Early Morning Remus like the hopeless star that he is caught in his orbit. He takes a flask of Firewhiskey from the kitchen, opens the Floo, and swirls off to the hospital with a churning mix of excitement, lingering angst, and the midnight blue shimmer of the unknown roiling in his belly.

—

James Potter could barely handle the stress of asking Lily out on their first date. Back in sixth year it was a matter of persuading him that wearing the bight orange jumper was a terrible idea and _Here, Prongs_ , he should probably calm down and drink this shot to quell his nerves—very little has changed. After stepping out of a busy Floo corridor, Sirius meets a rattlingly nervous and wild-eyed James in a tidy waiting room and immediately proffers the flask; it’s halfway empty in two pulls of drink.

“Lily made me leave the room until the midwife arrives,” James blurts as he hands the flask back, too preoccupied to even wince at the strength of the liquor. “I was talking too much, but you know how I always just talk to cover the nerves, I mean this is an actual real human _being_ coming out here, that’s pretty bloody important and—”

“Merlin, Prongs, shut your trap and have some breakfast!”

Peter has rounded the corner with two cups of coffee in hand along with what is presumably a paper bag of pastries. He beams when he sees Sirius.

“Pads, hey! Congratulations on the almost-godson!” He hands off one of the cups and the bag to James and greets Sirius with a one-armed hug. “You’ll teach him all the things that they won’t, eh? Motorbikes, cars, all that Muggle stuff—”

“ _No motorbikes_ ,” James insists sternly through a wide and hurried mouthful of a croissant.

“Nah, just all the best dirty words and how to outdrink his father,” Sirius replies, smirking knowingly at James to receive the brotherly scowl from him over another bite of his food.

“Aye, where’s Moony?” Peter asks, but quickly corrects himself with a soft and extended little “Ohhh” and a slow nod at the general atmosphere of the waiting room. Sirius winces slightly and nods, ignoring the tug in his stomach.

“We really did want to do the whole thing at home, you know that’s what we were planning,” James says after swallowing, resting a reassuring hand on Sirius’ shoulder, “but Lily woke up an hour ago and decided here would be better. She called it hormone brain—doesn’t want to have to worry about anything going wrong. I didn’t remember what that entailed until we were being ushered back to our room; we’re sorry, Pads.”

“No need for sorry, Lily’s the one with the effort ahead of her, Remus understands,” Sirius says, clapping James once on his elbow. “He’ll just be by once you’re settled back home. He says he’s both proud and horrified you and Lily have combined your genes.” He smiles when James and Peter both laugh.

“Could you imagine if he ended up with Lily’s hair and your complexion?” Peter quips, “A quarter-Indian ginger, you’d have to teach him how to fight.”

“Or just how to hex without being caught,” James says, a smile reminiscent of their days as unruly boys unclouding the nerves on his face for a moment. Peter and Sirius sit in two of the empty chairs against the wall and they talk of idle things for a while to distract James as best they can—of course James doesn’t sit, but he doesn’t pace either to Sirius’ relief. He leans against the wall beside them, tense, twined, and keeps a measure of his attention trained always on the pair of doors leading to the maternity ward to their left.

“Mr. Potter?” A young Healer in white robes comes into the hall from the direction of the entrance with a pretty, sylvan-looking witch behind him. All three men stand straight at the name, which makes the Healer quirk a surprised little smile. “I—don’t know which of you is the father, but your midwife is here.”

James steps forward, shakes the woman’s hand and introduces himself before turning suddenly back to Sirius and Peter. “I’ll have them bring you in as soon as you’re allowed,” he says quickly. His dark eyes are afire with pride, and Sirius hefts him into a tight hug.

“Give Lily our love, we’ll see you both soon,” Pete says with his own hand on James’ shoulder in comforting grip. James steps back, can’t keep a beatific grin from springing to his lips, and follows the Healer and the midwife briskly through the ward doors. Sirius watches them go as they swing shut, his veins singing with excitement.

“Are midwives the spinster-y sort? D’you know?” Pete asks, breaking the relative silence of the waiting room now that it’s only the two of them. “Because _that_ was a beautiful woman.”

Sirius sits back down in his chair, plucking an eclair form the bag of pastries and munching into it with a shrug. “I’d be a better consultant on the Healer, you know that.”

Peter chuckles, taking his seat beside Sirius, and stays quiet for a moment before drawing breath to say something. He stops himself once, readies his words again—Sirius smiles to himself, always endeared by the way Pete dances around topics he isn’t sure how to word terribly well.

“So…you and Moony then, it’s—it’s good?”

They had told Pete a couple weeks after James and Lily, only seeing him occasionally through his busy schedule but always making a point to grab a pint together at least once a month. Pete was three deep and beginning to go pink in the cheeks when Remus had looked over at Sirius with a little nod toward their friend, taking Sirius’ hand in his own and lacing their fingers together in plain sight on the tabletop. It took Peter five minutes to notice anything through a story he was telling about gillyweed and a customer’s terrier, and even then it had taken some assuring; _You’ve been doing this for HOW long? And I never heard anything? How the bloody hell did you do so poorly on your Charms N.E.W.T.s then, Pads, if you were practicing ‘em all over each other?_ And Remus had turned at least three shades of red as Peter had naively kept asking after specifics that Sirius tried his best to dance around. An extremely apologetic note had come the next morning with Peter’s massive snowy owl, and the next time they saw each other it was as normal as Peter could seem to get. Sirius knows it’s still a bit of a reach for the little man—he’s always amused by it when it comes up in conversation.

“Yeah, it’s wonderful,” Sirius says with a genuine smile. Peter returns it.

“I’m glad for you, Pads, I really am. I used to worry about you at school, you know, what with your family and all your brooding the first couple of years.”

“Ah, brooding is good for the addled teenage brain,” Sirius sallies flippantly. He loves Pete, he really does, but Sirius has never felt comfortable discussing his family with him. He hopes the discomfort doesn’t show through the airy brush-off.

“Makes sense _now_ that you brooded instead of dating your way through the ranks of girls who were patently obsessed with you,” Pete says, ribbing him. Sirius takes another bite of the eclair through a laugh.

“Wouldn’t it have just broken their little hearts to know I was just eyeing all their brothers?”

“You would have devastated a whole generation of innocent witches.”

Sirius snorts; “I wouldn’t call _all_ of them innocent. How’s your own romantic tide been, Wormy?”

Peter sighs lightly, his shoulders sinking just barely enough to betray true loneliness. Sirius’ heart pangs.

“It’s going, I suppose. I’ve seen a couple girls here and there, a Muggle once or twice—I’ve got a nice little Glamour over the shop, makes it come off as a chemist’s and lots of ladies come through looking for holistic things. Nothing sticks though, haven’t been on a _second_ date in ages.”

“You’ll get there soon, Pete,” Sirius encourages, patting his knee genially. “You’ll see, there’s going to be a gorgeous girl someday in desperate need of…some sort of herb, and you’ll sweep in to the rescue! She’ll swoon! She’ll fall madly in love with you and you’ll have loads of little herbologists running around in no time.”

Peter smiles as he shakes his head in humor, finishing the cup of coffee on the little table at his side. “I still can’t believe they're having a kid.”

“Yeah? I knew James always wanted one, still just impressed he actually landed Evans.”

“No, I mean amid all of the—the terrorism. You-Know-Who things. You know,” Peter mutters. Sirius blinks, for he hadn’t even considered the state of the world around them in relation to bringing in new life. He supposes that yes, it is slightly insane, but if any pair of people were to do something good to spite the worst of the wizarding world it would absolutely be James and Lily.

“I dunno,” Sirius says, genuine as he squints in thought at nothing in particular on the wall across from him, “I think they’ll be fine.”

“You think? I just worry.”

“You worry too much, Wormy,” Sirius says heartily, standing with a stretch, “you’ll be all wrinkled by 40. I’m going to get a tea, do you want anything?”

“Better not, if I want to make girls swoon and the like,” Peter replies as he pats the slight paunch in his stomach. Sirius barks a laugh.

“The right one will want you just the way you are _and_ want to keep feeding you. Chin up, dearie!” He grins when Peter kicks his shin lightly but smiles despite himself. Sirius turns on his heel, out towards the cafeteria, intent on a warm tea and one of the obscenely large muffins he’s seen several Healers bustling past with for a breakfast fix so early in the day.

His insides twinge for Remus, but he knows dwelling on the frustration of inability is selfish and pointless. _It is what it is, which is bullshit, but can’t be helped,_ he tells himself, tossing a slightly distracted and banal smile of thanks to the attendant who enchants his food into instant warmth on a dish in front of him that he can carry back to the waiting room. The hum of activity in the hospital thrums around him like a gentle highway, and Sirius moves through the stark whiteness and high, vaulted ceilings of it all like a lone black checkers piece.

He arrives back in the waiting room to see Peter buried in a book, some sort of herbology treatise with a bearded smiling wizard on its cover. Sirius wonders idly if Remus had ever worked with the knobbly-looking man and is about to finish his sip of tea and ask Peter _How goes it with the flowers?_ when the maternity ward door swings open. Sirius and Peter immediately look up, all animalistic attention—Sirius is sure he feels his ears prick forward, and he could swear Peter’s nose twitched automatically—to see the same young Healer as before looking at them expectantly.

“Mr. Potter is sending for you, the baby is here.”

Sirius almost spills his tea when he slams it down to the table, muffin forgotten forlorn on its partially-eaten side, and clatters into a stand at the same time as Peter. The Healer gestures for them to follow him, sweeping back through the slim hallway beyond the doors, and Sirius and Peter fall into step behind him like excitable schoolchildren. They make several turns past doors covered with silencing charms and Sirius thinks, not for the first time, that magic has done a wonderful service, this time for new fathers everywhere to prevent them from hearing the cacophony of labor pains like portents on the way to their own rooms. He is vaguely thankful he’s never had to study up on the wonders of female anatomy.

The Healer stops outside of one of the doors and pushes it slightly ajar, moving aside to let Sirius and Peter enter. Peter barrels in eager, but Sirius feels a sudden surge of hesitation seize his limbs. He can see a sliver of the back wall of the room just beyond a neat little side table through the opening of the door, he can hear Peter saying something about “Holy shit, he’s already got hair?!” but his mouth is suddenly dry and his legs feel shaky.

“Are you the uncle?” the Healer asks softly. He smiles knowingly at Sirius, and Sirius sees a vein of Remus’ brand of tender empathy behind his large blue eyes. He feels himself relax enough to flex his fingers and rock back on his heels with a sigh.

“Godfather.”

“He’s an extremely healthy child, and Mrs. Potter did very well. It’s all smiles in there, go on.” The Healer pushes the door open an inch further with a nod, and so Sirius draws a deep breath before side-stepping through the opening into the room to face a measure of his future.

—

In Basingstoke, St. Michael’s church stands at the center of town. Sirius has gone into explore before in the late evening, one of the first weekends they moved in, just to get a feel for the place. In one of the comfortably-shadowed corners, made warm with a rack of votive candles beside it, was a statue of a beautiful veiled young woman holding a baby, glowing and healthy, with halos of light around both of their heads. Remus had told him with Sirius asked about it upon returning home that they were religious figures, Mary and her son Jesus, and while Sirius hadn’t quite grasped the story of a virgin birth he had still appreciated the tender loveliness of the statue.

In this little room at St. Mungo’s, frazzled and exhausted with sweat-stuck red hair and tired eyes, Sirius thinks that Lily and the new baby look even more beautiful than Mary and Jesus.

Lily looks up at him and smiles. “Come here and hold your godson, you ponce.”

“Shouldn’t James hold him first?” Sirius says weakly, and James lets out a soft breath of laughter as he nudges Sirius forward.

“I held him ten minutes ago, Pads, go hold my son.”

Sirius swallows and approaches the bedside, his jaw clenched with martial preparation as he looks down at the little bundle that is Harry Potter. He already has a crop of dark hair, as thick and way and unruly as James’, and his eyes are screwed shut in a fitful burrow against the warmth of Lily’s shoulder through the blanket wrapped around him.

“He’s so quiet,” Sirius marvels dumbly, staring down at the baby. Lily laughs, a tired but lovely sound.

“He’s been rooting around on my neck and shoulders since he’s been out, James thinks he’s trying to find his way back in,” she jokes, and Sirius laughs spasmodically at the quip despite his heightening nerves—he’s never held an infant before.

“How—um, how do I hold him?” Sirius asks.

“Cradle him sideways against your chest,” James says, moving beside him to help position his arms properly. James lifts the baby as if he’d been doing it his whole life, and Sirius steals a fraction of a second to wonder if the phenomenon of fatherhood immediately imparted the knowledge of the miniature universe that is this child into James’ mind.

“So you just support his head in your elbow, here, and bum there, aaaand there you are, it’s Harry James!” as James transfers the baby into his arms, and suddenly Sirius is holding his godson and his heart feels like it will hammer out of his chest and onto the floor like a frantic mouse.

Harry stirs, his face still scrunched in inquisitive-looking frustration, and he makes a tiny sound that causes Sirius’ heart to swell with a completely new sort of love—he loves Remus with every inch of his nerves and he loves James with the surety of his heartbeat, and Lily, and Peter, and the memories of the better parts of his brother, and fucking Firewhiskey and Beef Wellington and the strain of a hard-turning bolt on an engine, but he has never felt this sort of love for anything or anyone the way this child fits in his arms. It echoes in him on a new frequency, a massive and invisible signal that dredges up his emotions in the most gorgeous waves of peace he’s felt in a long time.

Harry yawns widely and Sirius feels a laugh bubble out from inside him, _oh bollocks_ he’s definitely tearing up, his eyes start to mist over, and then Harry sneezes and opens his eyes to stare right up at Sirius. His eyes are the most brilliant emerald Evans green he’s ever seen, and Sirius feels in this moment that everything in the galaxy is going to find a way to be alright because this child exists.

“Lily, he’s beautiful,” he says through a thick choke of emotion.

“He looks so much like James’ mother,” Lily replies, and Sirius hears happy tears in her voice as well although he can’t look away from this arresting and perfect gaze from the baby, pure and absolute and whole.

“He looks more like Lily’s dad,” James says, and dammit, James it also crying, and from the other side of Lily’s bed Peter draws his kerchief from his pocket and mutters a rough “Merlin alive, we’re a bunch of weeping nannies.” The four of them share a shaky laugh as they brush at their tears, and Harry makes another little squeaky sound and reaches an arm up towards Sirius’ face in stuttering instinctive baby-motion.

Sirius gingerly shifts the weight of Harry’s tiny bundle into the crook of his arm to free his right hand, and he extends a finger to touch gently at the flexing olive-pink skin on Harry’s little fist. Harry spreads his fingers in stunted newness and clutches a couple times at the air before latching onto Sirius’ finger with a surprisingly strong grip.

“He’s amazing,” Sirius murmurs, halfway to himself, wiggling his finger playfully in Harry’s hold.

“Why do I get the feeling you two are going to get into far more trouble than I had initially thought?” Lily says, and Sirius kisses Harry’s hand right on all its tiny knuckles through a wide smile.

“Well _somebody_ has to teach him about motorbikes, and cars—”

“Sirius Black, I swear to Morgana if you put my son anywhere near that bike you’re a dead man!”

Sirius grins and cradles the baby close, knowing deep down that by some unsaid force of reality itself he would do anything in this world to teach Harry all the better parts of life, and he would keep him blessedly safe amidst it all.

—

Two days later, James’ neurotic owl finds its way back through the window in Basingstoke with word they’ve finally settled in back home. Remus is brewing tea in the kitchen when Sirius unrolls the parchment, and he nearly knocks over the sofa when he vaults over its back to careen towards the entryway.

“We’re Flooing to Godrick’s Hollow, they’re back home with the baby!” he announces in a flurry, rushing to pull on a pair of boots and jam his keys into his pocket. Remus abandons the teapot with an excited little shout, scooping up the loaves of bread he’d baked out of impatience the day previous and left stacked on the counter wrapped in their heat-charmed tea towels, and he steps into a pair of shoes and into the hearth before Sirius has finished tying his second set of shoelaces. The sheer glee of the moment is obvious on Remus’ face, and Sirius kisses him as he gathers a handful of powder from the mantle.

“You’re adorable sometimes, do you know that?”

“I’m _always_ adorable, let’s go,” Remus immediately parries, practically vibrating out of excitement. Sirius announces the Potter residence and dashes the powder, and he accurately predicts that Remus will be stumbling out of the fireplace to say hello before his vision even blurs back in through the traveling flames.

“Congratulations!” Remus cries, handing the bread over to a very confused James and kissing him full on the cheek, who had only been standing ready to give Remus a greeting embrace. Sirius laughs brightly as Remus beelines over and drops into a crouch beside Lily in the old armchair on the opposite end of the room.

“How has it been, has he been good? Was he alright adjusting to the house?” Remus asks, and Lily smiles as she shifts Harry gently to pass him over to Remus’ waiting arms.

“He’s been very good, shockingly good actually, considering he has James’ blood in him. Barely cries at all,” Lily replies as James emerges from the kitchen after storing the bread as best he can.

“He likes to listen to the Harpies games on the radio, so at least I’m positive he’s mine,” James jokes back.

Sirius watches, secretly rapt, as Remus gathers Harry into his arms easily and dotes on him with a tiny nuzzle of his nose and a wide, perfect smile. “God, Lily, he’s got your eyes in _spades_.”

“And he never just looks at anything, he bloody _stares_ at it all,” James chimes in.

“You’re curious then, aren’t you? We’ll have books in your hands in no time,” Remus coos, and Harry makes a burbly sound that makes Remus laugh and cuddle him closer. Sirius’ heart soars as he watches the exchange, and he barely registers anything else in the room until he feels James prod his shoulder.

“You’re melting, mate, careful not to stain my carpet,” he mutters. Sirius feels his cheeks burn as James snickers to himself and heads back into the kitchen. “Tea?” he calls, and everyone agrees with varying degrees of distraction caused by the baby.

As the tea steeps and they all claim a place around the living room, it becomes clear to Sirius that Remus adores children. He holds Harry with an instinctive care that begets Lily’s own love, and while Sirius already knows with absolute certainty that he would throw himself in front of an angry Horntail to protect this baby, Remus looks at Harry with twelve times the wealth of love that Sirius felt bloom inside him at the hospital. He’s sure it didn’t shine through him like this. Sirius muses on the idea that they’ve never really discussed children at all—two blokes still trying to cobble their own lives together on the fabric of a rapidly-shifting society have had many other things to think about. It’s a lovely thing to discover.

Soon enough Harry begins to fuss, so Lily sets her tea down and gathers him up out of Remus’ arms. She lulls him with a soft singsong on her way upstairs to feed him, and there’s an easy silence that settles on the sitting room when her footsteps fade into the nursery above them.

“Damn good job, Prongs,” Remus says after a moment, suffuse with admiration.

“Well I didn’t get to pick the cell that won the race,” James says with a smirk, “but from what Lily’s mum told us he’s a rare sort of calm. We got lucky.”

“You think he’ll show strong magic?” Sirius asks.

“I started accidentally charming my mobiles before I turned 1 but Lily didn’t start showing until she was 5, so it’s a toss-up.”

“Alice and Frank also had their baby, did they owl you? Day before Harry I think, they didn’t send out the messages until they got home from Mungo’s yesterday,” Remus says. The blush of happiness is still bright on his cheeks and Sirius stifles the urge to kiss him until the sun burns out.

“Yes, they ended up naming him Neville! Lily sent a bouquet, we planned a visit with them next week. Frank is over the moon.” James sits back in his chair, content in a tired sort of way, and Sirius and Remus share a look they both know is the warmest joy for James’ satisfaction.

“We should go over with dinner one of these nights if they’re up for it,” the collective of motherhood for Alice and Lily implied in Remus’ “they.” Sirius and James agree, and they continue in on their tea while Sirius’ ears prick up pleasantly in the pause to hear the faint hum of Lily singing a low, lovely version of “Rocket Man” from upstairs.

“Speaking of Frank and Alice, did you see the Prophet yesterday?” James says, moving with the familiar motion to draw his cigarette case from his pocket but stopping awkwardly when it isn't there. Sirius notices the way he flexes his hand on his thigh, and he doesn’t envy the effort of quitting the habit as per Lily’s request.

“About the Aurors in Surrey?” Remus offers with a touch of unease, and James nods.

“Blasted a whole warehouse of Death Eaters to ash, at least twenty of them.” Sirius ignores the sprite of instinctive panic that twinges in his guts—always sure it’s some sort of evolutionary magic left in his veins to react to such news of cousins in the thrall, a sick self-preservation unaware of the fact his status has been obliterated from the family. James continues; “We didn’t lose a single man, and the officers are quite sure they didn’t let any one of the bastards out alive.” He voice suddenly drops, ominously. “All the paperwork we take care of in the Ministry offices lately is still a fucking mess though, did you know our ranks have been granted authorization to use Unforgivables now?”

“Jesus,” Remus breathes to himself into his teacup, finishing his last sip and setting the china down with a soft sound. “Who led them in, Moody?”

“Yeah, and would have been Frank on second-in-command as well if he wasn’t home with Alice and Neville.” They’re silent for a short moment, unconsciously inviting Lily’s soothing _And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time_ to float down the stairs and calm the air.

“Twenty Death Eaters gone though,” James says with a strange fierceness Sirius has rarely heard in his words, “that’s significant. Maybe this whole shit show is ending soon. The Aurors are girding up to move in on known coteries in London within the next few months.”

“One can hope,” Sirius says, and he looks meaningfully at Remus’ doubtful eyes from across the room. _We’re not London, we’ll be safe,_ he hopes his gaze is saying clearly.

Lily comes back downstairs soon and Remus is immediately more comfortable, which Lily notices and hands Harry off to him in response.

“A baby is a lot easier to deal with than politics, isn’t it?” she quips, settling herself into James’ lap and kissing him on the forehead.

“A hell of a lot more pleasant as well,” Remus coos to Harry, winning him a happy burble from the baby and a snort from James.

“I dunno, a rank of Death Eaters might very well be knocked out by some of his diapers.”

“And whose fault was that, giving him a taste of curry ‘just to see which side he takes after more’?” Lily snaps, which rips laughter from Sirius and Remus like a rescue flare.

Deep in the bedrock of his soul, ensconced in blood-knit anxiety and the predisposition to desperately love his friends Far Too Deeply, Sirius knows the antivenin of Harry’s innocence can only do so much to make their troubled world feel more like home. But as he looks at Remus holding the child, sees Lily and James proud and healthy and so prepared to tackle the stretch of life ahead of them with their headstrong vigor, he can’t find it in himself to dwell on the seemingly inevitable horror of whatever the future might hold—he knows he’s a bloody pessimist, sometimes even too dour for Remus’ stark logician’s take on everything, but he’s trying. Enveloped by the warmth of Godrick’s Hollow, early August birds wheeling outside and happiness billowing in the sitting room, Sirius finds it easier to forget to be so bleak.

—

Flooing home an hour later, Sirius feels a surprising swell of cool air meet him on the other side of the hearth when he opens his eyes.

“Ah, praise, the unit’s back,” Remus announces, and Sirius graciously notices the steady hum of the cooling unit winnowing the air in the flat to life. They set to shutting all the windows that are flung wide, and Sirius takes a moment to enjoy the relative silence of a sealed flat for the first time in several days once they’re all closed tight again. Remus emerges from the bedroom wearing a jumper, and Sirius has to laugh.

“Were you about to go through withdrawal?” he jokes, in love all over again with the familiar sight of Remus bundled in this extra layer that has always fit his personality like a second protective skin.

“Oh, I was _this_ close to getting cold sweats and the shakes, it was horrendous,” Remus replies, smiling. “Not everyone is as used to prancing around without a shirt on all the time like you are, you know.”

“I enjoyed the rarity while it lasted though,” and Sirius winks at him as Remus shakes his head with a snort before moving to his desk to root through a pile of parchment. Sirius removes his boots and sighs lightly, watching after Remus instantly returned to the normalcy of quiet homeyness. But there’s a shimmer that has knotted itself behind his energy that Sirius catches at like a distant tune, an upward shift in the tilt of the neutral set in his mouth and a sharpened glint of youthfulness that hasn’t lived in his stare since at least fourth year. Sirius walks over to stand behind him and pulls him around into a warm embrace, feeling him tense slightly with inquisition but melting into it nonetheless.

“You really do love children, don’t you?” Sirius murmurs. Remus sniffs a chuckle against his shoulder and draws a lazy pattern over Sirius’ back with relaxed fingers.

“I really do, I think they’re great little anomalies.”

“I’m not sure if I appreciate you calling my godson an anomaly, Moony.” Remus laughs again, this time a low and gentle sound in his chest that makes Sirius pull him closer and inhale lightly at the junction of his neck.

“They’re different from adults, in a good way,” Remus explains. “I much prefer the way that kids look at the world.”

“How do you mean, with all their overreactive imaginations and the like? I used to think the tree outside my window at Grimmauld was a pixie walkup.”

“That, and the way they connect with others.”

“You’ll have to guide me through this one, love, I’ve not caught your logic yet.”

“Children don’t know how to hate by default,” Remus says softly after a pause. “It’s a learned behavior, and I love being able to interact with a mind that hasn’t been so twisted by society or parents or—whatever else. They're brilliant and they don’t even know it, so yes, children are fantastic.”

Sirius stays silent but pulls him closer, wending his arms about him like ardent vines that might heal him; always trying to heal him.

“Have—you ever wanted one?” Sirius hazards, heavy with unease, and Remus leans back to look him in the eye with a roiling mix of love and, _what is that, pity?_ behind his own before kissing him stolidly.

“I can barely keep my own head above the water, you know that,” Remus says with tenderness. “Can’t be Father Of The Year when I’m not quite myself nearly half the month, can I?”

Sirius smooths back a fall of Remus’ hair, wrestling with the feeling that he should say something on the contrary to make him feel better but knowing Remus is absolutely correct. He settles for a lame shrug; “I always thought I would be a terrible parent.”

“You’re nervous about Harry, aren’t you?”

“I—don’t know what to expect, that’s all.”

“Well the nice thing about our best mates being the ones with the baby is that we don’t have to deal with the mess of actually raising a child.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about children, Remus, I was never allowed to _be_ a child myself,” Sirius blurts suddenly, and with the softness that bleeds into Remus’ gaze he feels a weight lift off of his shoulders that he didn’t even know he was harboring.

“All you have to do is be you,” Remus assures him. “James and Lily want you in Harry’s life for a very good reason, so just love that boy with all the love you never got from your own family and he’ll be more than fine. You have a staggering capacity to make people feel like they belong, don’t you know that by now?”

Sirius wants to tell Remus how much of the world he is in this moment, a barreling rush of summer better than the sweltering heat outside the flat even as night falls or the chittering of crickets filtering through the closed windows. He doesn’t care that the cooling unit always shits itself, he doesn’t care that kicking off the covers at night won’t soothe the crawl of humidity— _this_ summer, the kind that sits in Remus’ soul and shines out through his eyes like some great and towering lighthouse, is the sort that Sirius wishes could never end. Always eager for the harvest of autumn that brings with it the blessed solitude and closure of an ending year, for the first time Sirius wants to draw out forever the perfection of the season blooming behind Remus’ sternum. He knows something dire is coming, it’s inevitable with the ramping tension racketing around on the radio and in the newspapers; terrible things are building while important people are crumbling. But there’s been a child created that has awakened in Sirius an instrument of affection, and Remus is standing in front of him like the most impossible blessing he never believed he could have, and so the harvest can wait. The future can stave itself off one day at a time if Sirius keeps his heart trained on what matters. He holds Remus’ hand in both of his and kisses across the warm, warm palm like a map of fortune.

 

— _fin—_


End file.
